[Khorne's Fist]

First off, I tend only to buy one of the anthologies if they have a particularly interesting story, and I only bought this one because it was the only thing in my FLGS that I hadn't read. It helped that Kyme, McNeill and ADB provided some of the stories.

As I finish it, though, I have to say that this is one of the finest collections of SM stories yet. Most cover historical events that had yet to be expanded upon by BL, such as Cardinal Bucharis's siege of Fenris during the Age of Apostasy in Twelve Wolves by Ben Counter, the aftermath of the near annihalation of the Scythes of the Emperor by hive fleet Kraken in Orphans of the Kraken by relative newcomer Richard Williams, which also goes into a lot of depth literally and figuratively about the workings of a hive ship. The story of why the Mantis Warriors sided with the Astral Claws during the Badab wars in The Trial of the Mantis Warriors by CS Goto is handled surprisingly well.

There is also something of a sequel to Black Tide by James Swallow, which recounts the return of the rescued Doom Eagle Tarikus to his chapter after years as a captive of Fabius Bile, in The Returned. Nick Kyme's Hell Night is up to his usual standards, with Tsu'Gan and Dak'ir holding their own against some ghostly enemies. Uriel Ventris features in Consequences, set between Warriors of Ultramar and Dead Sky, Black Sun. The White Scars finally get some love in Cover of Darkness by Mitchell Scanlon. ADB does a fine job of bringing more colour to the Flesh Tearers in At Gaius Point.

All in all I really enjoyed this book, and highly recommend it to anyone, whatever their feelings towards SMs. Each story stands on it's own merits, even those by questionable authors like Goto and Counter, which surprised me.

So, go get it!

 

[Bane_of_Kings]

Yeah, I picked it up along with Battle for the Aybss and Cadian Blood, and loved it. My favourite was the Consequenses short story.

 

[Khorne's Fist]

I'm torn between three, At Gaius Point, The Trial of the Mantis Warriors, (which surprised me considering it's Goto) and Orphans of the Kraken. This has more to do with them being about events we've heard about for years in passing, but never had expanded.

 

[darkreever]

Personally, of them all I generally only have comments for Consequences and At Gaius Point. I think all of the stories are fantastic, don't get me wrong, its just that these two stick out more for certain reasons.

Consequences because of its timing, had it come out before Dead Sky, Black Sun, then it would have been even better. As it stands, despite being a good story in and of itself, doing a marvelous job actually clueing us in on what happened, it just doesn't feel right coming so much later.

At Gaius Point, oh if ever there was a story to end an anthology on. This one I thought was absolutely brilliant, and was unable to put the book down because I wanted to reach it. I cannot even begin to go on about how the story made me feel, not without spoiling the whole thing for people who haven't read it themselves. Needless to say getting into the mindset of the character, what he had to do, the shame and sadness of past events and how things will never be right again, and ultimately the sorrow you can't help but feel at the very end. All of that makes it feel like such a good story to me, and personally I don't think anywhere but as the final story in the book would have done it justice.

 

[Khorne's Fist]

It really is a good story, and I was surprised at the angle ADB came at the story. I always got the impression that the FTs were resigned to their fate, and didn't really care who knew about their flaw, or what resulted from it. It was interesting to see that they do possibly care that there are innocent victims of this flaw.